It seems that theoreticians and physicists (and the comments here) are discovering what theologians have known for millennia: characteristics of the nature of God.

Yeah, that's always the first thing that goes through my mind when someone says we're living in a simulated world created by some outside entity to observe us and see what we'll do: congratulations, you've just discovered Christianity through science!

And the same goes for any laws that prohibit viewing of child pornography which include drawings: the efficiency at finding dangerous paedophiles is questionable at best and the current position of psychologists is that watching pornography satisfies the desire thereby reducing the urge to do it for real—which implies the effect of such law would be negative.

There is a difference between viewing terroristic material and viewing child porn, though. Like you said, people could be viewing terroristic material in order to find or know better how to handle terrorists. On the other hand, there is nothing to be learned about pedophiles by viewing child pornography. And while there may be a temporary satisfaction for pedophiles who watch it, it just keeps feeding their addiction. "The eyes of man(-kind) are never satisfied." There is also the detrimental effect on the whole for a society that permits any segment of its population to watch child porn for any reason.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

And while there may be a temporary satisfaction for pedophiles who watch it, it just keeps feeding their addiction

The science isn't settled on that AFAIK. The hypotheses that porn in general can sate desire and prevent acting out the fantasies in reality, vs that it normalises the behaviour and makes it more likely to be acted out are both plausible but unverified

Exec responds to anonymous vitriol, says Wolfenstein II is "on right side of history."

Hines responded pretty carefully on the greater subject, but he didn't seem concerned about losing a few sales to an anti-Nazi ad campaign: "To be honest, people who are against freeing the world from the hate and murder of a Nazi regime probably aren't interested in playing Wolfenstein."

Next up: Someone will call for a boycott on The Man in the High Castle.

Don't German laws prohibit video games from depicting swastikas, even on the uniforms and flags of Nazi villains in a WWII setting?
I would think that would turn Wolfenstein into just an anti-tyranny game, instead of anti-Nazi.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

@masonwheeler Oh, I get the irony of Science! Science! Science! Science! discovering theism, of any sort. I am merely pointing out that the theism Science! Science! Science! Science! might discover is not necessarily the Christian version of theism.

And while there may be a temporary satisfaction for pedophiles who watch it, it just keeps feeding their addiction

The science isn't settled on that AFAIK. The hypotheses that porn in general can sate desire and prevent acting out the fantasies in reality, vs that it normalises the behaviour and makes it more likely to be acted out are both plausible but unverified

It's not "settled science" only because of the complexity of scientifically determining mental state and because of the politics of rigorously defining what exactly is CP beyond "I know it when I see it". However, breaking a bad habit doesn't involve indulging that habit. The urge has to be denied and denied and denied until it weakens and disappears. Giving in to the urge instead of denying it just makes it that much harder the next time. People who have broken a porn addiction (or any addiction) know that this is true by experience.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

It's not "settled science" only because of the complexity of scientifically determining mental state and because of the politics of rigorously defining what exactly is CP beyond "I know it when I see it". However, breaking a bad habit doesn't involve indulging that habit. The urge has to be denied and denied and denied until it weakens and disappears.

Yes, but not everybody is able to break the addiction that way. And the porn thing is more like a substitution treatment, which might work for those who don't manage the direct way.

LEOs/courts would only need to see that it is CP. They certainly don't need to view the whole piece of media.

If they're trying to catch the guy who actually created said CP, yes they would, in great detail. Even though there's no magic "zoom, enhance" technology, I seem to recall a few cases where the pedophile got busted because of a view from a window or other detail which helps narrow down the location or the person of interest.

Substitution with something similar isn't actually breaking the addiction. At best, it's weaning off, but the addiction can't be considered broken until they're off the substitute as well. And some things have to be quit cold turkey (or never started in the first place whenever possible, hence preventative measures).

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

there is nothing to be learned about pedophiles by viewing child pornography

Again, law enforcement... and there's "who they are", "where they live", and "what children have they hurt", to begin with.

I don't really see any difference between the two scenarios. The argument that "nobody except law enforcement should be allowed to possess or view such materials" could be made equally well for either of them.

I don't really see any difference between the two scenarios. The argument that "nobody except law enforcement should be allowed to possess or view such materials" could be made equally well for either of them.

I don't really see any difference either. I just see many ways the argument is broken for both.

Billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates owned up to the mistake at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum on Wednesday.

Sometimes you can only wonder. He wouldn't have wanted a single reset-the-machine key that you could accidentally press on the PC/XT. So presumably he'd have wanted IBM to create a new keyboard with a SAK when NT came out in 1993? Looking at the huge success of the PS/2 and Microchannel it doesn't seem like IBM could have forced that onto others even if they'd wanted to, so NT wouldn't have worked with any other manufacturer's machine. Right, that sounds like what MS would have preferred.
Anyway MS got manufacturers to put their stupid "Windows keys" onto keyboards just a few years later, that would have been the time to fix that.

Law enforcement need to view it to verify that it is CP. I understand the people on that duty get rotated out quickly as it's a harrowing experience.

I still have in my bookmarks list the blog of a French computer scientist who works as an expert for tribunals (oh, apparently he has an English version, although not quite up to date). From time to time, he works in child pornography cases and has to dig through HDDs and DVDs to see if it contains reprehensible material. That leads to posts like this one (that's the first one I found in the English version, there are more if you dig through the archives).

A concerned resident phoned the police after spotting a Tesco delivery van near his home, claiming "people in this village don't shop at Tesco". The incident was cited as one of the many strange reports fielded by North Yorkshire police, who are working to reduce the number of time-wasting calls...

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds... nor even the gloom of smoke from the burnt-to-the-ground houses to which the mail's being delivered.

Rhodes' famous St Pauls Chapel has reportedly banned foreigners from getting married there, after a photo of a British couple simulating a sex act went viral. Newlyweds Carly and Matthew Lunn stunted up the picture and posted it on Facebook, shortly after they were married.

Sometimes, life pushes even the most boring or predictable of people too far. The results of these sudden snaps can be dangerous and hard to see coming; maybe they start an international drug empire as part of an ultimately futile effort to defy the natural order and take some control back of their...

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds... nor even the gloom of smoke from the burnt-to-the-ground houses to which the mail's being delivered.

Malcom Applegate took extreme action to leave his wife, who he says started showing controlling behaviour towards him. Applegate left home without telling a soul, and slept rough in the woods next to a community centre for the elderly, where he’d been working as a gardener. He did this for ten...

New digital technology allows people without a voice to sound like themselves for the first time.

It'd occurred to me before that it was a shame that people who need devices to speak can't have individual voices, and that it should be possible to record a lot more and let people have regional accents and so on, but this takes it further by combining it with the sounds the person can make which is quite cool.

Hawking was so happy with the movie [ed: The Theory of Everything] that he told filmmakers he would allow them to swap the synthetic voice they had been forced to create and replace it with his own, trademarked computerized version.

Hawking was so happy with the movie [ed: The Theory of Everything] that he told filmmakers he would allow them to swap the synthetic voice they had been forced to create and replace it with his own, trademarked computerized version.

While Prof. Hawking likely has a voice profile which is not publicly available, it mostly sounds like that article's editor unwittingly made that change, maybe forgetting that "trademark" can be used as an adjective as well as a verb.

New digital technology allows people without a voice to sound like themselves for the first time.

It'd occurred to me before that it was a shame that people who need devices to speak can't have individual voices, and that it should be possible to record a lot more and let people have regional accents and so on, but this takes it further by combining it with the sounds the person can make which is quite cool.